Note of the Congregation for the
Doctrine of the Faith on Personal Ordinariates for Anglicans Entering
the Catholic Church

Vatican Press Office

A reasonable
and necessary response leading towards full communion

The text of an Apostolic
Constitution on Personal Ordinariates for Anglicans wishing to enter the
Catholic Church is soon to be released. The announcement was made by
Cardinal William Joseph Levada, Prefect of the Congregation for the
Doctrine of the Faith, at a press conference at the Holy See Press
Office on 20 October [2009]. This papal initiative comes as a response
to "the requests for full communion that have come to us from Anglicans
in different parts of the world in recent years", Cardinal Levada
explained. Fr Federico Lombardi, SJ, Director of the Holy See Press
Office, pointed out that His Grace Archbishop Rowan Williams of
Canterbury, who has expressed his approval of the upcoming document, was
holding a simultaneous press conference in London to present the
initiative with Archbishop Vincent Gerard Nichols of Westminster. During
the London press conference, the Archbishop emphasized that the decision
should not be interpreted as an attempt to solve internal conflicts
within the Anglican Communion but rather as a response to requests from
specific Anglican groups and individuals. As such, "it has no negative
impact on the relations of the (Anglican) Communion as a whole to the
Roman Catholic Church as a whole", Archbishop Williams added. The
following is the explanatory Note of the Congregation for the Doctrine
of the Faith about Personal Ordinariates for Anglicans entering the
Catholic Church, released on Tuesday, 20 October.

With the preparation of an
Apostolic Constitution, the Catholic Church is responding to the many
requests that have been submitted to the Holy See from groups of
Anglican clergy and faithful in different parts of the world who wish to
enter into full visible communion.

In this Apostolic
Constitution the Holy Father has introduced a canonical structure that
provides for such corporate reunion by establishing Personal
Ordinariates, which will allow former Anglicans to enter full communion
with the Catholic Church while preserving elements of the distinctive
Anglican spiritual and liturgical patrimony. Under the terms of the
Apostolic Constitution, pastoral oversight and guidance will be provided
for groups of former Anglicans through a Personal Ordinariate, whose
Ordinary will usually be appointed from among former Anglican clergy.

The forthcoming Apostolic
Constitution provides a reasonable and even necessary response to a
world-wide phenomenon, by offering a single canonical model for the
universal Church which is adaptable to various local situations and
equitable to former Anglicans in its universal application. It provides
for the ordination as Catholic priests of married former Anglican
clergy.

Historical and ecumenical
reasons preclude the ordination of married men as bishops in both the
Catholic and Orthodox Churches. The Constitution therefore stipulates
that the Ordinary can be either a priest or an unmarried bishop. The
seminarians in the Ordinariate are to be prepared alongside other
Catholic seminarians, though the Ordinariate may establish a house of
formation to address the particular needs of formation in the Anglican
patrimony. In this way, the Apostolic Constitution seeks to balance on
the one hand the concern to preserve the worthy Anglican liturgical and
spiritual patrimony and, on the other hand, the concern that these
groups and their clergy will be integrated into the Catholic Church.

Cardinal William Levada,
Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith which has
prepared this provision, said: "We have been trying to meet the requests
for full communion that have come to us from Anglicans in different
parts of the world in recent years in a uniform and equitable way. With
this proposal the Church wants to respond to the legitimate aspirations
of these Anglican groups for full and visible unity with the Bishop of
Rome, successor of St Peter".

These Personal Ordinariates
will be formed, as needed, in consultation with local Conferences of
Bishops, and their structure will be similar in some ways to that of the
Military Ordinariates which have been established in most countries to
provide pastoral care for the members of the armed forces and their
dependents throughout the world. "Those Anglicans who have approached
the Holy See have made clear their desire for full, visible unity in the
one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church. At the same time, they have
told us of the importance of their Anglican traditions of spirituality
and worship for their faith journey", Cardinal Levada said.

The provision of this new
structure is consistent with the commitment to ecumenical dialogue,
which continues to be a priority for the Catholic Church, particularly
through the efforts of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of
Christian Unity. "The initiative has come from a number of different
groups of Anglicans", Cardinal Levada went on to say: "They have
declared that they share the common Catholic faith as it is expressed in
the Catechism of the Catholic Church and accept the Petrine ministry as
something Christ willed for the Church. For them, the time has come to
express this implicit unity in the visible form of full communion".

According to Levada: "It is
the hope of the Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, that the Anglican clergy
and faithful who desire union with the Catholic Church will find in this
canonical structure the opportunity to preserve those Anglican
traditions precious to them and consistent with the Catholic faith.
Insofar as these traditions express in a distinctive way the faith that
is held in common, they are a gift to be shared in the wider Church. The
unity of the Church does not require a uniformity that ignores cultural
diversity, as the history of Christianity shows.

Moreover, the many diverse
traditions present in the Catholic Church today are all rooted in the
principle articulated by St Paul in his letter to the Ephesians: 'There
is one Lord, one faith, one baptism' (4:5). Our communion is therefore
strengthened by such legitimate diversity, and so we are happy that
these men and women bring with them their particular contributions to
our common life of faith".

Background information

Since the sixteenth
century, when King Henry VIII declared the Church in England independent
of Papal Authority, the Church of England has created its own doctrinal
confessions, liturgical books, and pastoral practices, often
incorporating ideas from the Reformation on the European continent. The
expansion of the British Empire, together with Anglican missionary work,
eventually gave rise to a world-wide Anglican Communion.

Throughout the more than
450 years of its history the question of the reunification of Anglicans
and Catholics has never been far from mind. In the mid-nineteenth
century the Oxford Movement (in England) saw a rekindling of interest in
the Catholic aspects of Anglicanism. In the early twentieth century
Cardinal Mercier of Belgium entered into well publicized conversations
with Anglicans to explore the possibility of union with the Catholic
Church under the banner of an Anglicanism "reunited but not absorbed".

At the Second Vatican Council hope for union was further
nourished when the Decree on Ecumenism (n. 13), referring to communions
separated from the Catholic Church at the time of the Reformation,
stated that: "Among those in which Catholic traditions and institutions
in part continue to exist, the Anglican Communion occupies a special
place".

Since the Council, Anglican-Roman Catholic relations
have created a much improved climate of mutual understanding and
cooperation. The Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC)
produced a series of doctrinal statements over the years in the hope of
creating the basis for full and visible unity. For many in both
communions, the ARCIC statements provided a vehicle in which a common
expression of faith could be recognized. It is in this framework that
this new provision should be seen.

In the years since the Council, some Anglicans have
abandoned the tradition of conferring Holy Orders only on men by calling
women to the priesthood and the episcopacy. More recently, some segments
of the Anglican Communion have departed from the common biblical
teaching on human sexuality
—
already clearly stated in the ARCIC document "Life in Christ"
—
by the ordination of openly homosexual clergy and the blessing of
homosexual partnerships. At the same time, as the Anglican Communion
faces these new and difficult challenges, the Catholic Church remains
fully committed to continuing ecumenical engagement with the Anglican
Communion, particularly through the efforts of the Pontifical Council
for the Promotion of Christian Unity.

In the meantime, many
individual Anglicans have entered into full communion with the Catholic
Church. Sometimes there have been groups of Anglicans who have entered
while preserving some "corporate" structure. Examples of this include,
the Anglican diocese of Amritsar in India, and some individual parishes
in the United States which maintained an Anglican identity when entering
the Catholic Church under a "pastoral provision" adopted by the
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and approved by Pope John
Paul II in 1982. In these cases, the Catholic Church has frequently
dispensed from the requirement of celibacy to allow those married
Anglican clergy who desire to continue ministerial service as Catholic
priests to be ordained in the Catholic Church.

In the light of these
developments, the Personal Ordinariates established by the Apostolic
Constitution can be seen as another step toward the realization the
aspiration for full, visible union in the Church of Christ, one of the
principal goals of the ecumenical movement.

Joint Statement

A Consequence of
Ecumenical Dialogue

The following is the
Joint Statement signed by Archbishop Vincent Gerard Nichols of
Westminster and His Grace Dr Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury.

Today's announcement of the
Apostolic Constitution is a response by Pope Benedict XVI to a number of
requests over the past few years to the Holy See from groups of
Anglicans who wish to enter into full visible communion with the Roman
Catholic Church, and are willing to declare that they share a common
Catholic faith and accept the Petrine ministry as willed by Christ for
his Church.

Pope Benedict XVI has
approved, within the Apostolic Constitution, a canonical structure that
provides for Personal Ordinariates, which will allow former Anglicans to
enter full communion with the Catholic Church while preserving elements
of distinctive Anglican spiritual patrimony.

The announcement of this
Apostolic Constitution brings to an end a period of uncertainty for such
groups who have nurtured hopes of new ways of embracing unity with the
Catholic Church. It will now be up to those who have made requests to
the Holy See to respond to the Apostolic Constitution.

The Apostolic Constitution
is further recognition of the substantial overlap in faith, doctrine and
spirituality between the Catholic Church and the Anglican tradition.
Without the dialogues of the past 40 years, this recognition would not
have been possible, nor would hopes for full visible unity have been
nurtured. In this sense, this Apostolic Constitution is one consequence
of ecumenical dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Anglican
Communion.

The on-going official
dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion provides
the basis for our continuing cooperation. The Anglican Roman Catholic
International Commission (ARCIC) and International Anglican Roman
Catholic Commission for Unity and Mission (IARCCUM) agreements make
clear the path we will follow together.

With God's grace and prayer
we are determined that our on-going mutual commitment and consultation
on these and other matters should continue to be strengthened. Locally,
in the spirit of IARCCUM, we look forward to building on the pattern of
shared meetings between the Catholic Bishops Conference of England and
Wales and the Church of England's House of Bishops with a focus on our
common mission. Joint days of reflection and prayer were begun in Leeds
in 2006 and continued in Lambeth in 2008, and further meetings are in
preparation.

This close cooperation will
continue as we grow together in unity and mission, in witness to the
Gospel in our country, and in the Church at large.

London, 20 October 2009

VINCENT GERARD NICHOLS
Dr ROWAN WILLIAMS

Taken from:
L'Osservatore Romano
Weekly Edition in English
28 October 2009, page 20

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